Author Spotlight

David Thomson

Born and raised in London, David Thomson is the author of A Biographical Dictionary of Film and, most recently, The Fatal Alliance: A Century of War on Film, among many other books.

7 Results
The Chameleonic Charms of Sir Alec

Alec Guinness carved out a place among the greatest of British actors by mixing his demure persona with dry wit and a taste for the absurd.

By David Thomson

Rebecca: Welcome to the Haunted House

Alfred Hitchcock achieved Oscar-winning success with this psychological thriller, a tumultuous collaboration with producer David O. Selznick.

By David Thomson

The Fugitive Kind: When Sidney Went to Tennessee
Williams was delighted to see Magnani win an Oscar for her portrayal of Serafina in the movie of his play The Rose Tattoo (which he had written for her), and he recommended her for Orpheus Descending. She might not be from the American South, he s…

By David Thomson

BLAST FROM THE PAST: DILLINGER IS DEAD

If Dillinger is dead, who will take revenge? There were movies once that began, “Custer is dead,” in which you could reckon that a lot of Indians were going to pay the price. This bizarre film by Marco Ferreri (only just released in the United St

By David Thomson

The Last Emperor, or The Manchurian Candidate

Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-winning film is not just an epic but also a small film, one in which, somehow or other, the scope of David Lean has been enriched with the vision of Ozu.


By David Thomson

Le samouraï: Death in White Gloves

Jean-Pierre Melville’s great film flirts with macho extremism and slips over into dream and poetry just as it has us most alarmed.

By David Thomson

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne:The Earrings of Robert Bresson

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne is fixed in history as not just the second feature film by Robert Bresson, but as one of those movies that heralded an austere, modernistic way of seeing and feeling. But not even Bresson, in 1944, knew that he was bound

By David Thomson